Genius hour project

1.
Sara’s Tennis Survey
​1. ​What do Tennis Players Normally wear?
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​2. ​What are some of the hand positions?
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3.​ Where are some of the places that you play your games at?
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4. ​How do you prepare for a game?
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2. 5.​ What type of rackets do you have?
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6.​ How much time do you usually practice?
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​7. ​What kind of drill do you do to practice your feet work?
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​8. ​How do you follow through with your serve
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3. Hi i’m Sara Auty and I am a third grader at Hornung Elementary school and I
am doing this because it is a project for Genius Hour. I was wondering if you could fill
this out so I can know more about tennis so I can be better. Do you think that you could
get it back to my mom by next Thursday thanks.
Thanks,
Sara Auty

4.
Sara’s Tennis Survey
​1. ​What do Tennis Players Normally wear?
​1. Tennis players wear tennis clothes. For men this would generally
be shoes, socks, shorts, and a t­shirt or long sleeve shirt. For women they generally wear skirts,
shorts and a t­shirt, or a dress. Certain players like to wear sunglasses, headbands, or a hat as
well.
2. Hand positions include continental (used for volleys, overheads, slice shots and serving),
eastern forehand grip (one of the more popular grips and can be used for spin and power),
semi­western forehand grip (generates more spin than eastern), and a western forehand grip
(extreme grip that generates lots of spin). For backhands you can either use one hand (like
Roger Federer) or two hands (like Novak Djokovic).
3. Some of the places I played my games at include both high school and college tennis. In high
school I played at Ann Arbor Huron; I would play matches in Ann Arbor, Brighton, Midland, Novi,
and other cities for my high school team. For my individual playing I would play USTA
tournaments; these tournaments could be played in Michigan (all the way from Grand Rapids to
Ann Arbor), Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and other Midwest cities.
In college I played at Kalamazoo College. Our matches would be played more on the west side
of the state of Michigan as well as against teams from out of state (Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana,
etc.). We would also travel every year for spring break and matches were in Philadelphia,
Texas, and California.
4. Preparing for games could include anything from drills, practice matches, working out, or
doing visualizations. It really depends on the individual player and how they feel most relaxed
going out onto the court.
5. I have a Babolat Pure Storm; I have been using this racket for the past 7 years or so.

5.
6. When I was playing competitively for school I would play a minimum of 1 hour per day
(private lesson). Most days I would play between 2­4 hours for practice. During matches some
of the time we would play 3 matches in a day!
7. Some people would say I need more help with my footwork than others. To make your
footwork better you can do a variety of drills; the most popular ones I would do include ladder
drills, the spider drill, cone drills, and using a stretch band to work on your explosiveness and
agility.
8. The serve should be one fluid motion, where when you toss the ball your hands separate at
the same time. As the ball is in the air your racket moves behind your body; make sure you toss
the ball high enough to let the racket come all the way through the hitting zone and hit the ball at
the top of its flight (aka the trophy pose).
Following through allows you to get more spin and power on the ball. A good tip my previous
tennis pro John taught me was to think of the racket like a sword. When you serve you take the
sword out of the sheath, but when you follow through make sure to put the sword back into the
sheath on the left side of your body (if you are right­handed) or the right side of your body (if you
are left­handed).